Mainie

Mainie Designer Fashion Pty Ltd is an Indigenous Australian owned company with a vision to berecognised internationally as a distinctively Australian fashion and gift brand.Mainie products are a unique melding of two ancient artisan cultures originating from Australia’sunbroken 60,000-year-old Indigenous arts heritage, and luxurious silks from the historic Silk Cities ofChina, where silk making first began over 4,700 years ago.

Mainie’s founders and owners are Cairns-based husband and wife team, Denis Keeffe and CharmaineSaunders. Mainie is entirely self-funded by it owners and receives no government funding.Charmaine is a descendant of the Gunggari people from the Maranoa River region of south westernQueensland and has family links to the Woorabinda and Cherbourg Aboriginal communities.Charmaine’s love of Aboriginal fine arts has grown over years of working in remote Aboriginalcommunities in Queensland and the Northern Territory. She left her executive level role in theAustralian public service in 2013 to focus on the couple’s vision of creating an iconic Australian fashionlabel showcasing genuine Aboriginal designs.Denis’ business background has spanned a successful career in management for major multinationalcompanies, as well as CEO roles for national sporting teams including the foundation CEO of theTownsville Crocodiles NBL club, the News Limited appointed CEO of the Toyota North QueenslandCowboys, the Cairns Taipans NBL club and the chief executive of the Central Queensland NRL Bid.Mainie embraces Fair Trade ethics and is committed to investing in Indigenous owned enterprises andsupporting Aboriginal women artists to preserve their traditional cultural heritage.

Artworks featured on Mainie’s products are acquired through licensing arrangements with Aboriginalowned and controlled arts centres located on the traditional homelands of the artists, and inaccordance with the Indigenous Art Code. Royalties from the sale of Mainie garments are paid to theAboriginal artists. Since its inception, Mainie has paid tens of thousands of dollars by way of artworkpurchases, licence fees and royalty payments to artists’ enterprises in isolated and remote Aboriginalcommunities.

Mainie successfully launched its maiden collection of luxurious silk fashions featuring authenticAboriginal Dreamtime designs in Cairns in August 2015.The label has quickly made its mark in the Australian luxury retail sector and is currently stockedalongside some of the world’s most prestigious labels at high end department stores, fashionboutiques and gift shops in premier tourist shopping precincts at Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne,Darwin, Alice Springs and Uluru.In the Far North Queensland region, Mainie is available at select retailers and resort shops in Cairns,Palm Cove, Kuranda, Port Douglas, Mossman, Mission Beach and Lizard Island.

In July 2016, Mainie opened its first retail shop in Cairns’ largest shopping centre, the Lendleasemanaged, Cairns Central.